Archive (Page 2 of 4)

We don’t have a con­cept of bal­ance. Not only do we not have a con­cept of bal­ance, but we have a very dis­tort­ed sense of social jus­tice that has been reframed to jus­ti­fy a soci­ety that is fun­da­men­tal­ly anchored around the con­cept of imbal­ance. The resources of the world clus­ter toward a hand­ful of very very pow­er­ful coun­tries, one coun­try hav­ing an even greater share. In order to jus­ti­fy this greater share, it’s made them believe that this high­er con­cen­tra­tion of pow­er is nor­mal, and that any­body in all coun­tries can have it, and that all coun­tries should aspire for it.

My think­ing is how do we design sys­tems that pro­vide for every aspect of our human­i­ty? How do we design a city that cares for all of our needs? You know it’s not just think­ing about shel­ter, but it’s think­ing about our food and our air and so, obvi­ous­ly the types of indus­try we have are very dif­fer­ent, because we have to make sure that our air and our water is clean. And that our food is read­i­ly avail­able, and that we have spaces for con­tem­pla­tion and reflec­tion. And that we have places for com­muning with each oth­er.

The worst-case sce­nario for Detroit would be that the archi­tec­ture of the Internet as it is now con­tin­ues, and Detroiters’ sto­ries, voic­es, lives, are absent. And the New York Times sto­ry about the cre­ative class sav­ing Detroit, or the doc­u­men­tary about the aban­don­ment and whole­sale destruc­tion of Detroit that por­trays it as a waste­land and a blank can­vas ready for entre­pre­neur­ial exploita­tion, that those sto­ries are defin­ing the nation­al, the glob­al imag­i­na­tion of what Detroit is. And that those sto­ries, they don’t use influ­ence people’s desire to come here and do those things and live that life, though that’s part of it, but it also shapes the per­cep­tion of peo­ple inside the city.

When the pub­lic can­not prove that the oil com­pa­ny is going to cause dam­age, then we’re not allowed to say, ​“Nevertheless, the risk is not accept­able.” So we have turned it over, the deci­sion, to the expert. We have tak­en it out of the hands of the com­mu­ni­ty. And then when we say we want com­mu­ni­ty input, we hold a pub­lic hear­ing, and the experts sit up at a table. And then the grand­moth­er who does not have a grad­u­ate degree, she’s not allowed to say, ​“Here’s what I’ve seen. Here is what’s hap­pened in my com­mu­ni­ty. And that’s not accept­able.” Her view is not tak­en because she’s not an expert. And so we’ve tak­en away the right for self deter­mi­na­tion and for com­mu­ni­ty deter­mi­na­tion.

I like to think that we are an intel­li­gent species. I mean, actu­al­ly the peo­ple that often get this most quick­ly are the peo­ple who are poor­est, because they know the sys­tem doesn’t work. But so many of our sup­pos­ed­ly bright­est peo­ple pick this up and don’t ques­tion it. And then we have the all the whole field of eco­nom­ics, which is an ide­ol­o­gy built on assump­tions that if you exam­ine them are absurd. Because you know, econ­o­mists sim­ply look at the econ­o­my as a pric­ing sys­tem. They’re not sys­tem thinkers. Part of the cause our cri­sis is that we’re not edu­cat­ed to think in terms of sys­tems.

What’s key…is that we all need to work togeth­er. There’s no way for all of us to know about each oth­er. We’re in that part of this new way of being that there’s too many play­ers. It’s too chaot­ic. There is no cen­ter, there is no hub. But we need to find ways to work togeth­er, and to lose the idea that any one of us is the solu­tion. Because if any one of us were the solu­tion, we wouldn’t be where we are now.

I always won­der about peo­ple that are very pro-tech on the Left, for exam­ple. ​“Oh, we’ve got to keep all this. Of course. That’d be crazy.” You know, you want to pre­serve all of the lev­el of tech­nol­o­gy. The ques­tion that occurs to me is, oh so you want to keep how many hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple in the mines, in the smelters, in the foundries, in the assem­bly lines? I would like to see them be able to do some­thing else. But you’re going to have to keep them there one way or anoth­er if you want to have all this stuff.

In the future, we have to change the way we look at con­sump­tion. That’s why I’m such a big pro­po­nent of the shar­ing econ­o­my. Because it’s not an issue of if it’s going to hap­pen, it’s when it’s going to hap­pen. And I’d rather peo­ple vol­un­tar­i­ly adopt it now and start real­iz­ing the ben­e­fit of it now while we’re still in this kind of rel­a­tive land of plen­ty, than be forced into it lat­er when all of a sud­den there’s not enough water to cov­er Phoenix any­more because it’s a huge city in the mid­dle of a desert and they have to go on water rationing.

Obviously there’s human rights that have to do with water and air and safe­ty and shel­ter, but I think edu­ca­tion is right there with it because it real­ly is a pub­lic good. I have such a hard time with peo­ple who say, for exam­ple, who don’t have chil­dren and say, ​“Well why should I pay those tax­es. I don’t have any­body in the schools. It’s not ben­e­fit­ting me.” And I think how can you pos­si­bly say that? Those are the peo­ple that are ser­vic­ing you, whether they’re ser­vic­ing your roads or your super­mar­ket or your med­ical offices.

The ques­tion that philoso­phers have asked since antiq­ui­ty is how should you live? What is the good life for a human being? And the two answers that have repeat­ed­ly come back time and time again are that there are two things that mat­ter. One is agency. That’s to say being in con­trol of your life, active­ly, cre­ative­ly engag­ing with the world. And the oth­er is com­mu­ni­ty.